Comments on: Finest mechanical bird song of 1890

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 13:52:00 +0000

I was feeling the same way until it struck me how much effort went into making it, and then the cutesiness that would have been sickening in a plastic and electronic device was somehow suddenly quite touching.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 13:44:00 +0000

Stunning : D

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 13:42:00 +0000

: O

By: jim wright

jim wright — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 14:40:00 +0000

Hope I spelled it right: Eurasian Skylark!

By: jim wright

jim wright — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Any idea what the species is? I linked to the YouTube video from my nature blog, celeryfarm.net, and a very good birder thinks it’s a Eurasian Skylark…

By: John Maple

John Maple — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 01:47:00 +0000

This is so amazing to me. The ingenuity to create such a thing is mind boggling.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 22:39:00 +0000

Mine too! XD

By: Stefán Sigurjónsson

Stefán Sigurjónsson — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 21:08:00 +0000

There are a bunch of those types of automatons in an extremely fun little museum in Utrecht in the Netherlands. It is a museum of automated instruments and is well worth a visit if you ever find yourself in the Netherlands. Their website is here: http://www.museumspeelklok.nl/?Language=en Highly recommended

By: Dean Putney

Dean Putney — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:48:00 +0000

I am amazed, but perhaps a little conflicted by this.

By: Dug North

Dug North — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:24:00 +0000

The person who uploaded the video is Michael Start from The House of Automata http://automatomania.co.uk/ He served as the horological and automaton consultant for the film ‘Hugo’.

By: chris coreline

chris coreline — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:20:00 +0000

*this* is what Boing Boing is for <3

By: gumbowing

gumbowing — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:19:00 +0000

Here’s a wooden Brony version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVxhK3Hvhig

By: Suzanne Wong

Suzanne Wong — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:13:00 +0000

in the same vein, 18th-century neuchatelois watchmaker pierre jaquet-droz, his son henri-louis and business partner jean-frederic leschot used to make intricate mechanical singing birds and mechanical animated tableaux for sale. here’s an example of the kind of stuff they make — a golden egg that opens up to reveal a pastoral scene with singing birds and a goatherd playing his pipes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOt3-WgFmns

jaquet-droz & co also made androids (automata simulate an action, androids perform it) such as a large mechanical doll who sits at a custom-made piano and can be programmed to actually press the keys with its fingers and play a tune (not just move its hands over the keyboard while a tune is produced elsewhere within the machinery). pretty amazing when you consider the limitations of technology in the 1700s.

the modern-day watch company jaquet droz, taking a page from the history books, just came out with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ0xfgjoloQ&list=UUQM6HXCgJmhjeXjV_uqOZUg&index=3

a minute repeater (mechanical watch that chimes the time when you activate a slide lever) with dial-side automata depicting a cascading waterfall and a pair of birds in a nest, fluttering their wings and feeding their offspring (who pop out of the eggs in the nest). as editor of a watch magazine, i am fascinated by this stuff — it makes me nerd out.

By: franko

franko — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:54:00 +0000

that’s an amazing piece of work. just watching it work is fascinating, but (bonus!) my cat was sitting on my lap at the time and even HE got excited about it.